Monday, August 10, 2009

Below are some insightful comments posted by readers of today’s Globe article about how Canada’s cartel of life insurance companies, who successfully lobbied to kill the competition known as income trusts, are now busy lobbying against proposals by some provinces to set up a new national system

Comments:

SO what happens if say..manulife goes bankrupt?

The insurance companies want to keep us on the hook.

The image of "fox in the henhouse" comes to mind when these [life insurance] companies start suggesting "solutions".

Always suspicious when the insurance cartel says it really, really wants to help out the little people. Sure!

The only reason the insurance companies don't want a national defined contribution pension plan is because it will eat into their profits. That's it.

Yes, do lets give the pension system to a "for profit" private enterprise, ideally a foreign owned one, what with the success Alberta has had with energy deregulation, privatization is the way to go to Edhellmonton in a hand basket.

I find it interesting that the same people that virtually bankrupted many a retirement plan, and retiree, now proclaim that they have the answer, that they are the ones to trust. Have we not seen this story before, how many billions in bail-out has their arrogance cost us thru this recession? I will not be one to trust these people again, they have been exposed as the fraudsters that they are, without true knowledge of the financial system. "Give me a small amount of money, and I will give you back millions down the road" they say, Are they all from Nigeria? Sure sounds like the same scam to me. Sorry, there is no 'free lunch'. Work hard, spend wisely, live within your means, be good to each other, but to hand my hard earned money over to these bumbling fools?...I say no!

Private for-profit insurance companies that were once mutual companies now want absolute control of pensions.If these firms were still mutual companies whose primary interest was the policyholder, I might believe they cared about people and pensions.But they aren't mutual companies anymore. They're private outfits whose primary aim is huge earnings at any cost -- for their executives, sales staff, and shareholders.Letting these people take larger control of Canadian pensions would be criminal -- something a lot of people will fight to prevent.

Industry need to fix their own house before telling other to. Their role is to sell normal annuities that give us the benefits from people in our cohort dying - just like pension plans. Yet when I tried to buy one, the price they wanted was more than the price of a Gov't RealReturn Bond drawn down to the age of 95.In other words, they were not even prepared to "break-bulk" much less give me any benefit from my cohort dying.

EVENTS

Income Trust Halloween VigilThanks to all who participated in both the Ottawa and Calgary vigils to mark the anniversary of the announcement.

WE"D LIKE SOME ANSWERS

As you well know, the ‘income trust thing’ has grown beyond the
question of whether fair taxes are paid on income from trusts. It’s
become a giant dirty snowball, and as it rolls forward it accumulates
more and more bulk. There are so many unanswered questions. Let's list a few and invite our "Accountable" government and our free press to provide some much-needed answers.

It is said “Trusts are inefficient use of capital. Why?” Two
related questions are ‘Whose money is it, anyway?’, and ‘Do Canadian
investors have a free and efficient market?’

How can information that is already in the public domain at SEDAR
make for a state secret? How could such information be used to harm
the Canadian national interest? And who would cause the harm?

Why won’t the Canadian media investigate the falsehoods and
misrepresentations told by the Minister of Finance to a committee of
Parliament? Was the Minister in contempt of Parliament?

Why won’t the Canadian media report (a) government tax revenues
gained from BCE in 2006 when BCE was a corporation to (b) government
tax revenues that would be gained in 2007 from BCE, if BCE had been
allowed to proceed to a trust, and (c) government tax revenues that
will be gained in 2007 from BCE, when BCE ownership has been carved
up as 45% foreign ownership and 55% large Canadian pension fund
ownership?